


Weak (Which Jacob is Not)

by duckduckorangejuicerobertdowneyjr



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Canon deaths, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, John is there, Kind of a character study, Minor canon divergence, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Paranoia, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, fight me, first work post on AO3, pretty much self-indulgent whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 19:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17065925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckduckorangejuicerobertdowneyjr/pseuds/duckduckorangejuicerobertdowneyjr
Summary: In which the vast amount of smoke and acidic vapors Jacob Seed's inhaled get the better of him, and not for the first time, he must reattain his contentedness with dying for someone else.





	Weak (Which Jacob is Not)

Jacob was having trouble breathing.

It started with a tickle in his chest, something that could easily be chalked up to breathing in the dust and death that floated its way into his room from the pens outside. It was annoying, but easily fixable. A little water, a little cough medicine here and there, a few glares in the direction of any new recruit who dared show a bit of concern.

He was fine. He was strong. The strong are fine.

By day five, the discomfort had evolved into pain and tightness. His smoked-out voice became somehow raspier with how much coughing he'd been doing when no one was around to see him hacking. Cough medicine became his new love, and he wondered for a moment if he could convince Joseph to let him convert to the cough medicine religion. If that existed. Hell, at this rate, he'd make it himself.

After a few days, an empty bottle made him realize how much medicine he'd been using. He frantically stored away the rest of the rations and soon the roughness of his voice increased tenfold. He wouldn’t waste materials when he didn’t really need them, especially for a minor cough. It would pass.

This cough was killing him, making his chest feel like it was being gripped in a vice and his throat feel like he'd scraped it raw. He hated it, but it wasn’t any worse than a bad cold. It would go away in a few more days, he was sure.

It didn’t.

The first coughing attack came while he was beginning a lecture on a captive audience of Whitetails. Preaching about strength when a negligible twinge in his lung became a sear, and he started coughing and coughing and gasping. A few minutes later he could breathe again, and he shooed his concerned men away with yells that _he's fine._ He dutifully ignores his mind and body screaming the opposite. When his men had retreated, Jacob snatched the music box and started the music, letting the resistance witnesses of his weakness rip each other apart.

 *

“Brother, are you alright?”

The sound of Joseph’s concern was something Jacob had gotten used to hearing a long time ago. Even over the radio, it's easy for Jacob to imagine Joseph's little face scrunched up with frightened worry. Now Joseph can take care of himself, could easily live life without his older brother holding his hand.

“Fine, Joe. The Deputy’s been a bit busy in John's region and I'm-“ He paused to clear his throat, staving off a cough. “-Worried for him.”

Joseph's tone of voice didn’t change.

“I'm not referring to the state of your territory, but to the state of yourself, Jacob. Some of your men have expressed their concern to me about your well-being. I can hear how your voice sounds, and I'm inclined to agree with them”

His own men, telling his weakness to his brother. He takes a moment to appreciate Joseph’s word choice. If he'd named names, given clues to their identity, someone would be dying tonight.

“I'm fine, Joe.”

Lying is a sin. His lungs burned.

 *

Jacob continued training his men, continued giving speeches. When his voice was too rough to record, some pre-recorded videos or lectures were available. A lot of what was being played was pre-recorded.

Even when his men stared a bit too long at the black bags under his eyes(between the coughing and the nightmares sleeping was impossible), no one brought it up, and he couldn’t be more content. The last thing he wanted was for his men to lose their faith in him. Think(realize) that his lungs were failing him and that he needed to be replaced. Thrown away. He could feel he wasn’t done quite yet.

 *

He woke up and his entire torso felt like it'd been crushed by a moose. He lay on his side, legs folded in close to his chest as his lungs spasmed and he gasped like a fish out of water.

Small, shallow breaths, and then he felt like he could get vertical. Shifting into a sitting position had black spots appearing in his vision. A few more minutes of breathe in, breathe out, and he felt strong enough to stand. With a hiss he hefted himself up. The pain in his chest became a stabbing agony and he coughed and coughed and coughed until he blacked out, the taste of blood on his lips.

He woke up on the floor of his room, sunlight streaming on his face. Everything was sore. He stayed there for a moment until he mustered the strength to drag himself upright, using the corner of a desk for support(weak). When both feet were under him, he leaned his way to the locked cabinet in the corner to fetch some more disgusting not-grape cough medicine liberated from some overtaken gas station. The seal was unbroken. He took a long look at the syrup bottle, then set it back on the shelf. Someone else might need it more.

None of his men questioned him when he showed up late. They had continued their duties in his absence, worked doubly hard to make up for him, earn his appreciation. He finds out through overhearing a hushed conversation that one of his men was sent to check on him, saw him on the ground but breathing, and figured that the strong could handle themselves. Jacob tracked down the man, one of his Chosen, and praised him.

 *

That was perhaps the worst day. Others were better. Sometimes he'd wake up unable to breathe. Others he'd wake up with only the most minor of twinges in his chest. Some days he wished he hadn’t woken up. Most nights he'd never even gone to sleep.

 *

Jacob knew, somewhere deep down, that he ought to go see the medics. But he knew that if word got out about how bad his lungs were, others might see it as an opportunity to work harder to get in his good graces. Usurpers. If his health was questioned his strength would be questioned, and eventually his leadership. But after day 40 of coughing up his lungs, the idea was becoming more and more tolerable.

While watching his Chosen run exercises, he began choosing in his head which would make the best candidates to replace him. Not yet, though. His brothers still needed him for something.

He knew he was dying, was going to die, and wanted desperately for it to be for his brothers. When he raised his voice to call in his men, barbed wire wrapped around his diaphragm, and his voice once more fell into a strained hush.

 *

John was dead. Members of Eden’s Gate saw his plane go down, followed his parachute. They were too late. The Deputy even had the disrespect to loot his pockets and throw his cooling corpse off a bridge. Sitting on his old, springy bed with the radio held tightly in clenched fingers, Jacob listened to the reports as they came. At the end, Jacob wasn’t tearing up. He wasn't. His trembling shoulders were from the coughing, and any redness in his eyes was from the strain.

 *

His littlest brother's death brought a new red-hot resolve to Jacob's planning and tactics. This coward would lose like he lost, he decided. Security was upped. The Judge-making process was optimized, increased output. He began developing his plan for the Deputy, capturing the Whitetails needed. He grabbed a rag and cleaned the inner workings of the music box. More gears in his machine. More sacrifices to oil the pistons. Efficient and deadly, razor sharp.

The Deputy was heading north, his scouts reported. Oh yes, this coward would feel what he felt. Jacob would be sure to draw it out as long as he could.

 *

Every time Jacob addressed the Deputy, he kept his voice almost at a whisper. When he kept his voice lowered, the need to cough subsided, he found. It made threatening the Deputy over the radio much easier, even though they probably needed to turn the volume up to hear him. He knew they would do it, listen anyway.

Bringing the Deputy in was never an easy task, even with all the bliss arrows they had. They were always fighting his Chosen, the Song, the Trials. Jacob could see why John had christened them Wrath. But they could never resist it fully. The plan was coming together, the pins being set up to be knocked down.

 *

Some kidnappings later and The Father himself arrived at the Veterans' Center. Jacob sent out a call for the Deputy to return.

When they awoke, Joseph told the Deputy about the... circumstances... surrounding the death of his newborn. Jacob had heard this story many times before, but he still had to fight not to mirror the Deputy's grimace. Something about his little brother, the last family he had (who'd crawled in bed with him when they were both much younger and sniffled against his chest until the drunken rambles devolved into snoring), having smothered a baby was enough to make a ball of ice form in his gut. The juxtaposition was eerie. The Deputy swore in his face and Joseph nodded in finality, turning away from the Deputy and laying a palm on Jacob's shoulder. Told him he'd done well, and Jacob held in a cough behind an almost-smile until the need faded. A twinge of something came to Joseph’s eyes behind his glasses, almost like he could feel Jacob’s moment of uncertainty. Then Joseph was gone, and Jacob was left alone with the Deputy and thoughts of his own weakness.

 *

One of his men asked him about his coughing, the roughness of his voice. Jacob told him he was fine. To never question his health again, unless he wanted to know what being eaten alive by Judges felt like. His words were almost immediately undermined by him hacking up a lung. The word must've spread, his men whispering about his weakness, as they started keeping their distance from him. But no one else asked again, so Jacob considered it a success.

 *

The pale moon shown in from the balcony windows. Jacob gasped for air.

 

Weak.

 

He coughed until his lungs felt like they were going to give out, then coughed until he couldn’t get in enough air to cough with.

 

Not fit to be a Herald. The Deputy escaped and keeps escaping.

 

Iron taste in his mouth. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move, suddenly flailing wildly-

 

Fingers pinching a tube shut. His dog tags feel like a noose.

 

He tried to scream, but he barely had enough air to breathe with.

 *

He downs enough cough medicine to kill a horse, and then some. He grimaced, but the taste didn’t bother him. It never did. Nothing bothers him. He's not weak. If he needs to go to the medic, he'll go. But he doesn’t. He isn’t weak.

By dusk, he's wondering if he could have drank too much medicine. He stops coughing, but is soon wobbling on his feet, stumbling like a drunk through the Veteran's Center. By midnight he's throwing it up, and he sits in the corner of the on-suite bathroom, wondering what snark the Deputy would have for him if they could see him now. He could only imagine how much they'd be laughing if he'd died from a fucking _cough medicine overdose._

 *

Three weeks later, and the coughing is almost unbearable. No medicine left, until he finds a fresh bottle outside the door to his room. His men must be taking pity on him. Weak.

Joseph leaves him a voicemail expressing his fears that Jacob will cause his own death. He cannot will himself into being strong, he must receive and share his strength with others. Sacrifice his pride.

Every inch of him is sore, and tired. Jacob takes a shallow breath, and spaces out. If Joseph keeps worrying, keeps trying to change the inevitable, Jacob will end up dragging him down with him. His breathing picks up slightly, wheezing with every gasp. Jacob is going to die. He's always, always, known that he was going to die for someone else. He wants it to be for his brothers- no, brother. John's gone. But the thought of it? It aches worse than his ribs. It hurts to think about Joseph being left alone. He's so tired of it hurting. The wheeze becomes a whistle becomes a pain and he coughs and coughs, until his eyes water and his lungs burn.

Weak.

He lets the voicemail run one more time, then deletes it.

 *

The Deputy has fulfilled their purpose and killed Eli. They've lost like Jacob lost. Now they’re on a run for revenge, gunning down his men, his Judges, his radio towers with "Only You" blasting through the mountains. Jacob knew that rage intimately, knew it very well when the Deputy killed John.

After Joseph's voicemail, he doesn’t really feel anything. His lungs don’t even hurt that much. He pushes himself onto the plateau and takes aim, but he isn’t really trying. Maybe one shot landed, but he couldn't tell. At one point, he started uncontrollably coughing just as he pulled the trigger, and the bullet veered wildly. He could hear the Deputy slinging insults at the top of their lungs.

The Deputy makes it to him and their eyes are filled with fire. A bullet in his leg, a bullet in his shoulder. The Deputy's a terrible shot. Maybe they did it on purpose, just to fuel their wrath by watching him suffer into death. A cruel game, they've been playing. "You hurt me, so I'll hurt you" sort of thing. It's all a big circle, isn't it? If it continued, neither would win, just circle, and circle, and rise and fall, empires rise, empires fall, and rise and fall again. It doesn't do much good, to keep getting back on your feet again and again just to topple. Just delaying the inevitable.

He stumbles down from his perch, moves the fight into the forest, and feels one of his legs almost give out and another of the Dep's bullets thunk into his side. It's time for him to stop delaying. He drops himself onto a jutting stone. It's a good place to stop. For once in a long time, he doesn’t feel like coughing. The Deputy draws forward and Jacob tells them everything, about how this civilization will fall like all the rest, how they've done everything Joseph said they would. Do they even believe it? Jacob doesn't know if he believes it at this point.

The Deputy is looking at him with something akin to pity. A rare sight if what they did to John is true. Jacob would've admonished them in the past, snapped at them. He doesn’t care enough anymore. If he tried to snap he'd start coughing. He's so fucking tired of coughing.

“You had no-" He gasped for more air, and was surprised when it filled his lungs fully. “Fucking clue.”

His lungs burn, but no more than they have before. He draws in a ragged breath, another, then thanks whatever God there is that he's finally getting a break.

**Author's Note:**

> *Jacob Seed, sitting in a house on fire drinking coffee*
> 
> "this is fine"


End file.
